High-level delegations from Israel and the United States have arrived in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), through the first commercial flight between the nations of the Middle East, to put the final touches on a controversial pact that establishes open relations.
The main assistants to the President of the United States, Donald Trump, and the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, were on board the direct flight from Tel Aviv to the capital of the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi, on the Israeli flag carrier El Al Monday.
Flight LY971 flew over Saudi Arabia after Riyadh accepted the Israeli request on Sunday, also the first.
The plane carrying the US and Israeli delegations to Abu Dhabi has the word “peace” written in English, Hebrew and Arabic.
It is also named after Kiryat Gat, a Jewish settlement built on the remains of two ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages, Iraq al-Manshiyya and al-Fallujah.
Announced on August 13, the “normalization” agreement is the first such agreement between an Arab country and Israel in more than 20 years and was catalyzed in large part by shared fears toward Iran.
The Palestinians were dismayed by the UAE’s move, worried that it would weaken a long-standing pan-Arab position calling for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territory and acceptance of the Palestinian state in exchange for normal relations with Arab countries.
‘Hisoric flight‘
Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and national security adviser Robert O’Brien, lead the US delegation. The Israeli team is led by O’Brien’s counterpart, Meir Ben-Shabbat.
Kushner expressed his hope for a more peaceful era in the region.
“While this is a historic flight, we look forward to an even more historic journey in the Middle East and beyond,” Kushner said before boarding the El Al plane.
The officials will explore bilateral cooperation in areas such as trade and tourism, and Israeli defense envoys are to visit the UAE separately.
Israeli officials hope the two-day trip will produce a date for a signing ceremony in Washington, perhaps as early as September, between Netanyahu and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
That could give Trump a foreign policy boost ahead of his re-election in November.
In Jerusalem on Sunday, Kushner called the agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel a “great step forward.”
“Having played a role in its creation, and I say this as the grandson of two Holocaust survivors, means more to me and my family than I can express,” Kushner said.
The Trump administration has tried to persuade other Arab countries concerned about Iran to commit to Israel. The most powerful of them, Saudi Arabia, has signaled that it is not ready.
But in what could herald a more relaxed stance on the part of Riyadh, El Al’s plane will be able to fly over Saudi territory to reduce flight time.
On Sunday, the Israeli television channel Kan reported that there were concerns from Israel that Riyadh could revoke permission to use Saudi airspace at the last minute. If flight is allowed, it would be the first time that an Israeli airliner has used Saudi territory for an overflight. There were no comments from Saudi officials.
‘Soon follow’
O’Brien said Sunday that more Arab and Muslim countries are likely to follow the Abu Dhabi move.
“We believe that other Arab and Muslim countries will soon follow the example of the United Arab Emirates and normalize relations with Israel,” O’Brien told reporters after the talks at Netanyahu’s residence.
He did not mention the states, but Israeli officials have publicly mentioned Oman, Bahrain and Sudan.
Recent news reports suggested that Morocco might also be considering a similar deal with Israel in exchange for military and economic aid.
However, Moroccan Prime Minister Saad Eddine el-Othmani said last week that “we reject any normalization with the Zionist entity because this encourages it to go further in violating the rights of the Palestinian people.”
The Palestinians have condemned the UAE move as an abandonment of a policy of linking official relations with Israel to the achievement of Palestinian statehood in territory captured by Israel in the 1967 war.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said Kushner and his team were “fighting to convince as many Arab and Muslim leaders as possible” to give Trump an electoral boost. .
“They will be a prop against the backdrop of a pointless spectacle for a ridiculous deal that will not bring peace to the region,” he said.
The agreement between the UAE and Israel was accelerated immediately after it was announced, as conflicting comments were made about the planned Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank and the Jordan Valley.
Despite previous comments from the UAE and a joint statement by the three countries indicating that the annexation plan would be “suspended”, senior UAE official Omar Ghobash has admitted that his government did not “have no guarantee as such “that Israel will not annex the occupied Palestinian territory in the future.
Kushner has said, as part of the agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, that the United States will not consent to Israeli annexation for “some time.”
Meanwhile, Netanyahu considered the annexation plan, which was already plagued by disagreements within his ruling coalition over the proposed timetable, to be temporarily on hold. But Israeli officials have signaled that they want the approval of Israel’s main ally, the United States, first.
An Israeli Air Force F-35 during an air demonstration at Hatzerim Air Base [Amir Cohen/Reuters]
Sale of weapons
The Israel-UAE deal also faces another problem: a possible sale of F-35 stealth fighter jets to Abu Dhabi that could challenge Israel’s technological advantage in the Middle East.
Netanyahu has denied reports that the deal with the UAE hinges on the sale of F-35s to the Emirates, saying he opposes a move that could reduce Israel’s military advantage.
“This agreement did not include Israel’s acceptance of any arms deal,” the Israeli leader said last week.
Since the 1960s, the United States has guaranteed to maintain Israel’s “qualitative military advantage” in the region.
The policy was reinforced two years ago with a law that Washington must ensure, when it sells weapons to another Middle Eastern country, that Israel retains the ability to defend itself if the weapons fall into the wrong hands.
Israel has already received a first shipment of American F-35s, a fighter also coveted by other Gulf powers.
Yoel Guzansky, a senior analyst at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, told AFP that there is no question about the importance of the F-35s.
“I absolutely believe that without the F-35, the ability to buy it, they [the Emiratis] I would not sign the agreement, “Guzansky said.” This is a major obstacle to compliance with the agreement. “
Guzansky noted that before Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, the United States sold sophisticated weaponry to Turkey and Iran, “and now these countries are hostile toward Israel.”
But some analysts say a deal can be reached that satisfies both Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and ultimately Saudi Arabia, a long-time customer of American armaments.
“Although this is not really public, from what I understand, arrangements are being made so that the version obtained by the Arab country is not the absolute latest version,” Joshua Teitelbaum, a Gulf specialist at the University of Barcelona, told AFP. Ilan from Israel.
Economic ties
On Saturday, the United Arab Emirates announced that it was lifting its economic boycott of Israel. Officials from the two countries have said they are seeking cooperation in defense, medicine, agriculture, tourism and technology.
Netanyahu told reporters that the abolition of the “anachronistic boycott” opened the door to “rampant” trade, tourism and investment.
Statements released by the UAE and Israel on Sunday said that the UAE minister of state and Israel’s agriculture minister had spoken by phone and “pledged to collaborate on projects addressing food and water security. “.
The United Arab Emirates, a desert state, depends on imports for about 80 percent of its food and has strongly encouraged investment in agricultural technology and farmland abroad in recent years.
Israel and the United Arab Emirates say they want to promote trade, especially the sale of Emirati oil to Israel and Israeli technology to the United Arab Emirates, establish direct air connections and boost tourism.
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